Beowulf and other Old English poems / edited and translated by Craig Williamson ; with a foreword by Tom Shippey.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Williamson, Craig, 1943-

Shippey, T. A.

Series:

Middle Ages series.

The Middle Ages Series

Standardized Title:

Beowulf. English.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Beowulf--Translations into English.

Epic poetry, English (Old)--Translations into English.

Epic poetry, English (Old)--History and criticism.

Dragons--Poetry.

Monsters--Poetry.

Scandinavia--Poetry.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxxi, 255 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2011.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

The best-known literary achievement of Anglo-Saxon England, Beowulf is a poem concerned with monsters and heroes, treasure and transience, feuds and fidelity. Composed sometime between 500 and 1000 C.E. and surviving in a single manuscript, it is at once immediately accessible and forever mysterious. And in Craig Williamson's splendid new version, this often translated work may well have found its most compelling modern English interpreter.Williamson's Beowulf appears alongside his translations of many of the major works written by Anglo-Saxon poets, including the elegies "The Wanderer" and "The Seafarer," the heroic "Battle of Maldon," the visionary "Dream of the Rood," the mysterious and heart-breaking "Wulf and Eadwacer," and a generous sampling of the Exeter Book riddles. Accompanied by a foreword by noted medievalist Tom Shippey on Anglo-Saxon history, culture, and archaeology, and Williamson's introductions to the individual poems as well as his essay on translating Old English, the texts transport us back to the medieval scriptorium or ancient mead hall to share an exile's lament or herdsman's recounting of the story of the world's creation. From the riddling song of a bawdy onion that moves between kitchen and bedroom, to the thrilling account of Beowulf's battle with a treasure-hoarding dragon, the world becomes a place of rare wonder in Williamson's lines. Were his idiom not so modern, we might almost think the Anglo-Saxon poets had taken up the lyre again and begun to sing after a silence of a thousand years.

Contents:

On translating Old English poetry

Beowulf

The battle of Maldon

Deor

The wanderer

The seafarer

The wife's lament

Wulf and Eadwacer

Selected Exeter Book riddles

Maxims II (Cotton maxims)

Charms

The fortunes of men

Cædmon's hymn

Physiologus: panther and whale

Vainglory

Two advent lyrics

The dream of the rood

Appendix A: digressions

battles, feuds, and family strife in Beowulf

Appendix B: Genealogies in Beowulf

Appendix C: two Scandinavian analogues of Beowulf

Appendix D: Possible riddle solutions.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (pages [245]-252) and index.

ISBN:

9781283897259

1283897253

9780812204407

0812204409

OCLC:

794700568